I remember last year, around the same time of the year Tanuka and Aikataan had gone to India and my client had the annual shutdown. I am not a person who gets bored easily unless I am watching a very poorly made movie. So I found myself a lot of things to do: polish my meagre culinary skills, catch up on my reading, ensure that I watched Bollywood movies in the US before my family in India got to them, lose the incredible amount of adipose tissue built up near my belly and so on. And I also decided to move into blogging more actively.

So I started / revamped a bunch of sites, chief among which was this one. I discovered open source blogging and CMS and I was pulled in. In particular I loved WordPress and Joomla. And so began my journey with trying to do things by myself. Some time in March 2009 I began something as an experiment: Aquoid. It was intended to be an exercise in in building Mac-like themes across multiple platforms. A lofty goal, indeed.

Aquoid was slow off the blocks, mainly due to the intense pressure at work those days. I had a stretch where I was forced to work weekends for weeks together. So I toned down the goals a bit and focused on getting out one simple and clean theme for one platform. I had no idea at that time that I had sown the seeds for a fun ride. Suffusion came about and would have sunk without a trace if it weren’t for a crazy desire of mine to make it just a little bit better. That “little bit” became all-encompassing, and the journey from a simple, single-layout theme to one that can legitimately lay claim to being customizable is a story in itself.

Since this is my blog, I will let myself brag and point out a few nice reviews of the theme at wordpress.org. There are a lot of great themes out there and if you ask me for an honest opinion I wouldn’t hesitate to rate them above mine. But all the same it feels good to be the author of something that people in general like.

As I devoted more and more time to Suffusion, my personal blog started suffering from a lack of attention. If you notice here, I have had just about 1-2 posts a month for the last few months. I believe I have compensated by making my updates on Aquoid a lot more frequent, though writers’ block too has had a hand in the reduction of frequency.

But enough about blogging. Professionally I started off on a new project after almost two years on my previous one. Unfortunately this project keeps me away from home around 65% of the time. Thrown in some horrible weather and coach class travel each week and you have a grumpy and weary me.

2009 was an eventful year for me personally, too. I took a true vacation in a very long time when I spent 3 weeks in India attending the weddings of a couple of my cousins. I had forgotten what a humid Indian summer felt like, having stayed long enough in the Silicon Valley to be spoilt.

And then of course, there is Aikataan. He recently started school and is beginning to grapple with English, since we only converse in Bengali at home. It is funny and amusing to see him grow – he turned three during the middle of the year and plays games on the Wii with the skill of a veteran. While he doesn’t understand when he wins at Tennis or Bowling, he does know that he gets a cup if he does well at Mario Kart.

I have never been a fan of glaring “pay-per-click” and online advertising on personal sites because I feel it takes the focus away from the somewhat personal nature of my blogs. But I do believe that you have every right to ask for donations to support your work, particularly if you put in a lot of effort into it and generate a good product. Your users get to determine if you are doing a good job and they can make a donation if they like.

Now, I used to find it a bit corny to explicitly put a button that said “Donate” on my page, because, all said and done, I really had no expectations when I started work on Suffusion. Moreover, the “Donate” button seemed to me to have undertones of begging. Eventually, though, a few people offered to “buy [me] a drink” and that is when I thought about finally biting the bullet and putting in a link. I eventually put in a “Buy me a coffee” button on Aquoid.

I want my coffee!!

Why a coffee? I will be the first to admit that coffee only helps me to stay awake when ingested in extreme doses. For those who don’t know me well, I can get by with around 30 hours of sleep in a whole week and not show any side-effects, all without coffee. I can also get by with 80 hours of sleep a week – I am that weird, but that is a story for another day. The other options were a Pizza (unhealthy) and a Beer (I am a teetotaler). Though now that I think of it, I could have put in a picture of hot wings – something I love. Anyway, the coffee was merely symbolic and had no bearing on what I was really going to spend the contributions on (though I assure you it isn’t for nefarious activities ).

I have been wrestling with the idea of a comic strip for a while now. However, it has been a while since I did any serious artwork. More than 15 years, in fact. The fact was amplified when I tried to draw a face from three different angles and I ended up invariably incorporating simian characteristics where I did not really need them. Eventually I settled for stick figures.

The particular installment of The Consultant Mixer is autonymous, since I started penciling it in August and I finished in October. A few words about an “autonym” – I had read in Richard Lederer’s excellent Crazy English, that an “autonym” is a word that describes itself. You can indeed search for “hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian” within this book in Amazon and find out that it means “a very long word”. The dictionaries don’t agree, though, or do not cover this definition of the word.

I am not particularly innovative with names. So I pulled an old trick here. IBM happens to be one of the largest Consulting firms today (if not the largest). In his famous 2001: A Space Odyssey Arthur C. Clarke had a computer named HAL, which people interpreted as a play on IBM (H before I, A before B and L before M), the founder of the ubiquitous PC. There is another school of though that believes, though that HAL is a “heuristic algorithm”. Nevertheless, I decided to use IBM as my source again, albeit the consulting arm of it. So you have JCN (J after I, C after B and N after M), or Jason.

Procrastination Power - It is always too early to start work

Have fun!

Another one inspired by Ekta Kapoor. Note that taboo concepts in India are not touched upon in soaps.

The Complex Relationships in an Ekta Kapoor Soap

Cheers.
Sayontan.

It has been close to two months since I released Suffusion through WordPress Themes and it has been a great ride. This has been my first open source contribution where I have had public visibility, so naturally I was apprehensive about how it would be received. But curiosity definitely outweighed apprehension and I went ahead with it. A couple of days back the theme completed 5000 downloads – not as fast as I would have liked it too, but definitely a landmark I feel good about.

The germination of the theme was an interesting story in itself. I have never liked using themes designed by others, though there are several really good themes out there. Somehow I don’t feel that my site’s design should be in determined by somebody else, hence I have always tended to render an author’s original creation indiscernible by the time I have it on my blog. I once asked my brother Koke to give his feedback regarding my previous theme and he, more out of respect for my advanced age relative to him, politely picked holes in it instead of savagely ripping it to shreds.

So I went back to the drawing board, cut out the fancy graphics and went about building “GreenLight”. The first cut of the theme was quite elegant and for people who like lightweight themes, it was a godsend. Again, with an unsolicited thumbs up from my sole critic, I decided to take the plunge. I felt that there are several hugely popular themes that offer very little in the way of functionality and I could definitely do better.

I cleaned up my theme, removed the flab wherever I could, and submitted it to WordPress. WP wouldn’t take GreenLight, so I had to change the name to Suffusion. At that point I had planned to supply variants at a later day and the name “Suffusion” was meant to be ironic in the sense that I would have every variant except a “Suffusion of Yellow” (a reference to the I Ching calculator in Douglas Adams’ The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul. So I waited after submitting. And waited some more. By my recollection it took the theme 3 days to get approved, but there weren’t any major changes required for the approval. It was a pretty straightforward “install and do some basic configurations” theme, with few frills. In the next few days as I saw the number of downloads tapering down, I learnt a few lessons:

1. People prefer themes on dark colors
2. Ability to tag keywords to your theme makes a gigantic difference. In other words, your theme might be very light on features, but as long as those features exist on some kind of an “theme options”, you have a better opportunity of scoring hits.

With the goal of achieving two objectives at the same time I set about providing an options page. I was very impressed by the number of options that the Atahualpa theme provided, but one thing I noticed on a lot of themes was that the author asked the users to “enter their own CSS”. I found this surprising, since if the user knew CSS wouldn’t he/she be tweaking a lot more than the configuration? But anyway, with a very small base of users and absolutely no pressure to deliver anything, I could focus on the task at hand.

The second release of Suffusion had a much tougher time getting approved, mainly because of my use of PHP short tags. However, once released, the downloads spiked. And so did the feedback. Users made requests for supporting a large number of new features, some of which were already on my development agenda and some others which were not. Most people commented on the configuration options being easy to use, so I was doing something right!

One of the biggest challenges of releasing software is providing support. Software itself might be bug-free and feature-rich, but users might still need help using it. As the theme kept getting downloaded more and more, I found more and more support requests coming in. For my part I have tried to be prompt about providing support by responding to queries. Of course, since queries come from across the world, there is sometimes a lag of 5-6 hours (when I am asleep) in responses. But hopefully people have found my support useful.

A word about the new feature requests. These were very interesting, because it helped me understand the perspective of the users a lot better. Things that I would feel did not matter very much would turn out to be key requirements for users. A lot of users have been very helpful in illustrating what exactly they need and some have even volunteered with snippets of code to help me. All of this has helped me become aware of a lot of things:

1. Features available in WordPress that I did not know about
2. The general issues that users of WordPress face while using a theme
3. Things that make themes popular

Along the way I came across a lot of plugins, I developed some widgets of my own (something I did not think I would do) and so on. I don’t charge for either the theme or for the support and yet I don’t see motivation to be an issue – people are using what I have written and I am quite happy for it.

The ride has been fun so far – let’s see where it takes me from here. For sure I know how I would do things differently for my new theme, but this journey with Open Source has been quite pleasing, to say the least!

29th October 2009: I am disabling comments on this page to discourage support requests here. Please use the Support forum to report issues and ask questions. That will create a better database for all users.

I just finished watching the Roger Federer vs Juan Martin Del Potro US Open 2009 final and needless to say, I am a bit upset with Federer’s defeat. But all the same, full credit to Del Potro for taking the fight to Federer and fully capitalizing on the #1’s errors.

However, the post match presentations on CBS are what got me annoyed. The presenter Dick Enberg first joked a bit with Federer, and after Federer gave his acceptance speech and took his trophy, the champion was called. And I was really shocked with the way Dick Enberg handled him. He first asked him a couple of questions, then Del Potro said, “Can I say something in Spanish?” Enberg ignored him saying, “We are running out of time”, then called one of the heads of Lexus (a sponsor, of course) to give Del Potro the keys to the car he won. He then had the awards given to Del Potro and was about to sign off, when Del Potro again asked, “Can I say something in Spanish?” This time Enberg said, “We are running out of time, so a few quick words…” (or something to that effect). Del Potro finally got to speak for about 20s in Spanish and even got teary-eyed at the end of it.

Is this what a 20-year old Grand Slam winner gets for beating the 5-time defending champion? We are running out of time? It wasn’t as though Del Potro was verbose anyway. Why exactly was CBS running out of time? Had they expected the match to be shorter given Federer’s record against Del Potro?

Don’t know if too many others noticed this, but it surely stuck out like a sore thumb.

Folks in and from India are probably familiar with Ekta Kapoor and her unending saga of soaps. It is my belief that it is algorithmically possible to define the plot for these:

The Core Engine behind Ekta Kapoor's Soaps

PS: I have been really busy with Suffusion, and weekly transcontinental travel isn’t helping either (actually it is from one coast of the US to the other, but transcontinental sounds so much more imposing). Hence the delay between posts.

My spam blocker does a pretty decent job of keeping out unwanted comments on my blog. Once in a while though, I love going through the list of comments that it has marked as spam, just for a laugh. Here is a small sample of the kind of comments I have seen. Italicized text in the quotes has been inserted by me.

• The simply obvious ones talk about offering supplies of medicines, dubious or otherwise, that will help typical hot-blooded men keep up with their reputations of being typically hot-blooded while indulging in various nocturnal activities that I shan’t mention here for fear of being tackled by search engines on grounds of sensitive content.
• There is this one which lures people with an ego waiting to be pampered:
  

  Thank you! You often write very interesting articles. You improved my mood.

  Huh? In response to me announcing that I will be no longer writing on Blogger.com? Of course, the link of the author is really what the author wants approved, for SEO reasons.

• Yet another one on the same lines as above:
  

  Hmm… I read blogs on a similar topic, but i never visited your blog. I added it to favorites and i’ll be your constant reader.

  Thanks for the undying fealty, but I will not approve your comment! Particularly since it was to my announcement of a new release of a WP theme.

• This one tries a somewhat similar approach:
  

  I’m new and felt the need to make a brand new thread to acquaint myself. My name is Maryann <or Katie, or Beth or whatever – the name is probably algorithmically generated> and I stumbled here by a fast search and preferred to just say howdy. I would enjoy engaging in future day discussions and look ahead to talking with all.

  My best hobby is <some link that I just had to edit>

  Nice try. Up to this point I have had 11 distinct people comment on my blog, of which only 3 people have had multiple comments. The rest have all made solo comments. Wonder what kind of discussions you are looking forward to, when the highest number of comments I have had on any post is 4!! BTW, this is a classic con that has a lot of people without spam blockers falling for it. In general, the more generic the comment and the more commercial the website, the bigger the chances are that the comment is bogus.

• Then there are comments written entirely in Russian:
  

  Хочу связать свое будущее с информационными технологиями, достаточно ли курсов или надо учится в универе несколько лет чтобы стадь хорошим специалистом ?

  Now I am fairly resourceful and by cursorily looking at the introductory pages of various books from Mir Publishers that I religiously read in preparation for my Engineering entrance, I got a good enough handle of the Cryllic script to do some transliteration (и -> i, н -> n, ф -> f / ph, о -> o, р -> r, м -> m, а -> a, ц -> sh etc.). But whatever alerted to the comment author of this fact? And why would I accept Russian comments on my blog when I can only scratchily read the language and not understand it? By the way, I did a Babelfish translation of this comment. Apparently the author is looking for information on university courses in information technology for purposes of specialization.

• I couldn’t figure this one out:
  

  Yeh right.. great post, Thank You

  The above, when read with emphasis on certain sections (Yeh right), would seem as though the author is mocking me. Oh, well.

Ciao.

There are times when I find it difficult to even look up from my laptop due to the pressure of work. And then there are times when I tire myself out wondering what I should do next. It is for these excruciatingly uneventful days that I have a whole list of activities to choose from:

• Following “sports” on TV
  • Snooker – Okay, I begin with a lie. I love watching Snooker and I don’t watch it to kill boredom. The games tend to get fascinating and there is so much intelligence and skill involved in each frame, that Snooker becomes almost irresistible.
  • Darts – I never knew that there was an official World Championship for Darts, till I found myself channel-surfing on a lazy Saturday afternoon in London. I remember Ted Hanky winning that particular championship and I even found myself picking up the rules of a standard Darts game. I learned that the Bulls-Eye doesn’t get you the highest score, but “Triple top” (3×20) does. That was the only time, though – I have never tried watching Darts after that.
  • Marathon – How do you explain watching a bunch of people keep running for a few hours? I have never been able to explain it myself, but somehow I have never shied from watching a marathon unfold – it is a guaranteed method of keeping you occupied for around 4 hours.
  • Preliminary rounds of Grand Slams being played by two women, neither of whom is Maria Sharapova – I love tennis and I love watching tennis. But I find women’s tennis to be of a decidedly low quality these days and when Maria Sharapova isn’t playing, the incentive to watch is even less. However my love for the game often overrules the poor quality of play and you will find me glued to the television watching the early rounds of the women’s grand slams championships, provided of course, I am either idle or I am trying to avoid work.
  • Ball-by-ball textual cricket commentary updates on Cricinfo, for matches between Zimbabwe and Netherlands – I love cricket, just like I love tennis. Technical difficulties in the US prevent me from getting a dish installed at home, and as a result I have no access to telecast games. However there is the old and reliable source – Cricinfo. Truly speaking this is not the TV, but in terms of simulating the experience for a person with a hyperactive imagination like me, it gets pretty close. Ever since I was in college, trying to tune into the cricket action in between classes, I have found Cricinfo to be the best source available. When I have nothing to do I first visit Cricinfo and see if there is any match going on – Ranji trophy, English county cricket, matches between Zimbabwe and Netherlands; anything at all. Then I start following the ball-by-ball commentary for it, staying glued to the screen.
• Keep looking at a BitTorrent or a download to see how far it has gone – I used to download stuff by BitTorrent occasionally, prior to the advent of Hulu. I always found the bytes and file segments being downloaded to be of profound interest, often leading to impatience on my side when things would slow down.
• Keep looking at the timer on the microwave to find out how much longer before something is cooked – When I have time and not necessarily when I am idle I like to cook rather elaborate meals. However when I am genuinely idle, I love watching the timer count down on the microwave oven.
• Keep checking my Alexa Rank every few minutes to see if it has improved – This is a somewhat new thing with me. Alexa updates its ranks everyday, so there is no point in checking every few minutes. However I find myself checking the ranking ever so often, in the futile hope that it has improved.
• Checking my email every minute, even though I have all notifiers installed – This is a classic symptom of ennui, straight from the IIT days. Those days it used to be “nfrm” (“new from”) and now I have the Outlook notifier and Google Talk notifier. The fact remains that no matter what the tools are, I still find myself slinking off to my mailbox application, just to see if the notifiers are indeed working correctly.
• Looking for real estate in the Bay Area, when I know fully well that I am nowhere close to being able to buy property – This is one of those pipe dreams that I love hanging on to. Given the current state of my finances I am a long way from being able to buy real estate of any sort in the bay area. But I love visiting sites like Remax just to see what houses are available in the locations that I prefer … and wondering when I will be able to buy something.
• Looking through the Lexus, Acura, BMW and Audi websites for SUVs, though I will be buying none in the near future – Yet another idle fantasy of mine. I love going through the websites and salivating over these cars, wishing that I hit the jackpot somehow so that I might be able to buy one.
• Looking for tennis racquets on Amazon – I have a couple of pretty good tennis racquets obtained at bargain prices, but that doesn’t stop me from frequenting Amazon and checking out the discounts offered on various high-end models. It does take restraint to stop myself from buying one of them, though.
• Checking the prices of an iPod Touch – I really want to buy an iPod Touch. But I don’t want to get the current version because my songs will not fit into the 16GB version and the 32GB version is too expensive to splurge on. And yet, I find myself checking out Amazon, eBay and PriceGrabber whenever I can, just to see if some dealer has some throwaway prices for the 32GB version.

Something that I have noticed in common across all my projects in consulting so far:

The Consultant Mixer - The Art of Proposals

There is obviously a market for a proposal generator. Wonder when someone will come up with the consulting equivalent of SCIgen’s “An Automatic CS Paper Generator“.